BlizzCon 2013 Wrap-Up Coverage

The confetti has settled and the CosPlay/BlizzBabes/BlizzDudes have taken off their costumes with BlizzCon 2013 now officially over. Our ears are still ringing from two days of madness at Blizzard’s Greatest Show on Earth. In case you missed our coverage, we have a wrap up of the first day’s BlizzCon activities here. The second day of BlizzCon 2013 was an exciting day with a multitude of panels discussing World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft announcements and game development. The more than 20,000 fans here in attendance, and the millions of fans worldwide, were treated to some of the best StarCraft II competition that we have ever had the pleasure of witnessing.

Horde versus Alliance

The day started off with a live raid from between the best Horde Guild in the world versus the best Alliance Guild in the world, Method and Midwinter respectively. This raid wasn’t a standard raid. The raid masters at Blizzard set it up so only 5 bosses were going to be killed and they didn’t have to kill any trash mobs to get to the bosses. The first boss to be slain was the Sha of Pride. Midwinter came out a few seconds ahead on this one. They then proceeded to Kor’kron Dark Shaman. Midwinter went ahead and pulled right away while Method used a few moments to get everything set up and coordinated. Methods planning paid off as they were able to kill the boss the first pull while Midwinter proceeded to wipe three times before finishing the encounter. When Midwinter did finally finish the encounter, Method had already killed Malkorok and Siegecrafter Blackfuse and was already fighting Garrosh. Method did wipe on Garrosh a couple of times which gave Midwinter a window to attempt to get caught back up. Midwinter was able to breeze through the two bosses leading up to Garrosh but by the time they finally got set and able to pull, Method was already finish Garrosh on attempt three. The race was hosted by Blizzard’s Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas and one of the new favorite community managers, Josh “Lore” Allen. I was hoping the live raid would have been a full run including trash and all but I guess that would really take too long and there was enough to get through today without spending more time watching people raid. It was a great experience either way.

The WCS StarCraft II WCS was the highlight of the BlizzCon eSports events. The crowds were amazing. So much energy in the hall where the matches were being played. The matches were played at such a high level. The day started with the semi-finals featuring sOs versus Bomber. sOs is a Protoss player while Bomber is Terran. sOs was able to win against bomber 3-1. Next was the crowd favorite Jaedong. He is a Zerg player and had a ton of fans in the crowed. Every sign I saw being held up was for Jaedong. He fought Maru, a Terran player in the semi-finals. Jaedong was able to beat Maru 3-1. This lead to Jaedong versus sOs – Zerg versus Protoss – in a best of 7 series final.

From the start, it was clear that sOs had gotten into Jaedong’s head because of his unconventional play. sOs does things that aren’t recommended but because of his skill level he can pull off some crazy builds. sOs was able to defeat Jaedong 4-1 in a convincing show of skill and knowledge of the game. sOs walked off the stage as the world champion and $100,000 richer! The finals were very exciting to watch. I can’t wait for more StarCraft II tournaments in the future.

Now that we have covered StarCraft II, we can jump into World of Warcraft on the next page.